The DA France Lyon Election Board is pleased to announce the candidates for DAFR Lyon Chapter leadership!

Members of the DA France Lyon Chapter area will receive a ballot by email. Electronic voting will end on March 15 at Midnight.

For questions, please contact the Lyon Election Board at [email protected].

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These are the positions that are up for election: Chair, Secretary, Treasurer, and Members at Large.

Candidate(s) for Chair

Dori Schwartz-Laboune

I’m an Oregon voter and have lived in France for 17 years. I came here last at the beginning of the Obama years. It seems like a lifetime ago, when for a moment, it felt that at last we had become a post racial society, that there was hope for a bright American future following the dark Bush years and the economic crash. And now here we are, with the normalization of nazi salutes and a fascist government that we must put an end to. Here in Lyon, we are going to be doing what we can to fight against the aberrant authoritarianism that has taken hold in our home country, and we are going to spend time supporting eachother and enjoying life together at the same time. I look forward to seeing you at future events. 

I joined Dems Abroad when we started the Lyon chapter. I’ve served as GOTV (get out the vote) officer for France, and as Lyon’s chair and member at large. I’m an in-home healthcare worker, attending to people who are elderly and disabled. In the US I worked for 20 years as a court language interpreter for Spanish and English.

 

Candidate(s) for Secretary

John Matthews

Boulder, Colorado is my voting home. Born abroad to American parents, I’ve lived a good part of my life overseas. But I still consider myself an American. I am a patriot, and I love my country. I’ve voted in every election since turning 18 in 1972, when McGovern lost miserably to Nixon. 

With the Vietnam war raging and the National Guard gunning down students at Kent State, I thought we were in trouble then. But what the Trump administration is doing today, with support from his Republican lackeys in Congress, is much worse. Just some of the disasters so far:

• Trump parroting Putin and claiming Ukraine started the war
• Elon Musk’s storm troopers stealing our Social Security and IRS data
• Haphazard firing of thousands of government workers without cause
• Inspectors General and government watchdogs fired for no reason
• USAID gutted and foreign aid funds frozen
• Threating our closest allies with tariffs and other retribution
• Mass deportation of foreigners without due process
• Ignorance of climate change and cancelling green energy initiatives

And there are so many more. And now Republicans in Congress want to take away our voting rights by requiring all voters to prove their citizenship to their voting precinct in person.

It’s time to break out the old protest songs from the 70’s and add more.

I joined the Board shortly after the Lyon chapter was formed in the wake of Donald Trump's first election, first as a member-at-large and then as treasurer. Now with Trump in the White House again, wreaking havoc on our democracy, it is more important than ever to call on our representatives to put the brakes on the administration, and for our members to stand up in protest. I am a self-employed software engineer. I am looking forward to continuing to help wherever I can.

Candidate(s) for Treasurer

Abigail Charlet

I was born in Orange, New Jersey 78 years ago. My family moved to Rhode Island when I was about 12 years old. The green Atlantic ocean and fishing ports, sand dunes and wild flowers, granite jetties and sailboats are fully etched in my DNA.  I set out to discover the world in 1968 and have voted as an overseas Rhode Island democrat ever since.   

My first stop was Paris where I worked for 2 years at The Reader’s Digest in its European Editorial Office. Then on to Tlemcen, in Algeria for 16 months, working in the Centre Culturel Français in Tlemcen while my husband completed his obligation militaire as a coopérant, teaching French in the local high school. I returned to Gap, France, just in time to give birth to our twins. Although we loved Gap, it was time for a new adventure, so in 1980 we set our sights on French Polynesia, where stayed for 6 years. We said farewell Fenua as we boarded the plane in Fa’a’a, Tahiti in 1986, and landed in Lyon many, many hours later, where I have been even since. 

Back in France, my venture into the professional began as an English-speaking guide for the Office de Tourism du Beaujolais. Successive jobs found me working for an underground hardrock mining company; a fishing equipment company; an international world life science conference; an international organization focusing on vaccines where, amongst other duties, I managed a budget of more than 1M€ for European vaccine projects. I am now assisting the editor of the organization’s scientific journal, my role being that of editorial manager. 

Candidate(s) for Communications Officer

Coraline Crannell

Born in LA County to a French mother and American father before having lived in Santa Barbara with a brief stay in Lake Tahoe, I’m a Californian who can often be recognized by the skateboard I’m getting around Lyon with. After completing high school, during which I was lucky enough to participate in and organize various student movements, protests and clubs, I moved to France at 18 years old in order to pursue my studies in political science here & to avoid getting into US-sized student debt during COVID. Though the original plan was to stay for only a year or two, I’m still here, on my 5th year in Lyon, pursing a Master’s in sustainable land planning, with only rare trips home to the US. Though my visits back are brief, they have become more and more concerning, along with the news & stories shared from the states, and seeing our fellow American’s rights slowly being stripped away by the current administration is absolutely terrifying, along with the increase in propaganda as the extreme right dominates the media sphere and continues to attack our education system. It’s clear today, as tempting as it is to disengage, that now is the time to continue organizing and to uphold and reinforce our communities inside of the US and abroad, making minuscule micro-level impacts, that hopefully can snowball to macro-level change. From abroad, the support that we can offer one another through this administration is going to be essential, as is the unique perspective that we can offer our fellow Americans in the states; in other words, communication, between us, Democrats living abroad, and our compatriots back home is key right now. It’s this exchange of dialogue, on every level, that I’m hoping to help encourage, by serving a second mandate as the Lyon Chapter’s Communication Officer. 

Candidate(s) for Members-at-Large

Betty Beeler

I first became a member-at-large on the board of Democrats Abroad Lyon in 2023, and am interested in continuing to play an active role as a member-at-large during this crucial time in American politics. As a dual citizen living on the outskirts of Saint-Etienne in the Monts Lyonnais, I first got to know Democrats Abroad through its valuable voter assistance  - and friendly but persistent reminders to vote (as far back as the Obama years). 

My background: I vote in North Carolina where I lived before coming to France almost 40 years ago. I started my career as a teacher in the Peace Corps in West Africa which is where I developed an interest in living in other cultures. Here in France I was the head of international development and professor of cross-cultural management at the Ecole Supérieur de Commerce de Saint-Etienne (today a part of EM-Lyon). Although I retired in 2016, I continue to do research on the impact of the domination of English in international business, and am active in an academic women's group based in London called Cygna. I hope to put the experience I gained during my career to good use at DA Lyon.